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svelteParticipantyeah. Theater is not our thing.
We try when we visit NYC. When in Rome and all.
The last time we sat in the back row. Had someone famous in it, can’t remember who. So boring. I got up to get a wine in the concession stand. Was followed there and back by an usher with a flashlight. Annoying. It got so bad we started whispering to each other to break the monotony. Gay couple in front of us glared at me.
We’ve got friends in the Napa area that love that stuff. They met while they were in a play (onstage) in SF. They can have it. They were talking about Hamilton all the time when it was the rage. To each their own. Life is all the theater I need.
svelteParticipant[quote=scaredyclassic][quote=Coronita][quote=scaredyclassic]yeah, we should have a housekeeper. this is too much.
however, as to a., b., c., and d. that you describe above, I dispute that there is any way to know what those numbers are.[/quote]
Look at it this way. There’s a lot of people out of work these days. When you hire a housekeeper, a gardener, or buy some takeout food, you’re either creating a job for someone or helping someone keep theirs.[/quote]
that kind fo thinking doesn’t help me part with money. I also rarely feel I get the value in kind for what ive paid. in fact, very very few things seem worth the money.
oats are worth it.
my washing machine.
my house.
fresh fruit.
that’s about it.[/quote]
If having money makes you happier than spending it, then by all means hold onto money! Its not about doing what I, flu, your financial advisor or anyone else says – it is about doing what makes you happiest.
Only you can know what that is.
Agree that there is no way to definitively know what the proper figures are for a, b, c, and d. Life is a gamble! Figure out a best and worst case! Determine what worst case you could live with if it should happen and make sure you’re north of there! Over estimate how much you’ll need!
Or just sit on a big stash of money if that makes you happier. But as you’ve already expressed, that also causes you worry as to the best way to hold onto it.
Ya gotta place your bets somewhere! In the meantime, life is what happens while you’re busy making plans.
svelteParticipantThrowback: Now that I can’t go to the gym, I’ve been setting up a mini-gym out back. Last week I bought a six pack of Heineken to drink one a night as I exercise. When I get to the bottom of the Heineken, exercise is over. It’s a carrot to keep me exercising.
It’s also a throwback – when we were young and broke our one splurge was a six back of Heineken a week. Didn’t cost a whole lot, but it made us feel like we were worth something. The brain is a mysterious thing.
Yesterday I went to the fridge to get my Heineken for the night – there should have been 2 left. But there were none. ?
My wife, who drinks wine exclusively now, drank them. I guess she was feeling nostalgic also.
svelteParticipant[quote=scaredyclassic]
Well, yeah, i should appreciate my tiny success. But i dont. It was way more fun to be young, stupid and broke and see so much potential than to be old and narrow with a cash buffer, but to have eaten the bitter truth.
. I used to blow $$$ on a housekeeper 20 years ago and we were broke. I was an idiot. I even had my shirts pressed at 2 bucks a pop. No way in hell nowadays.
401k? Haha! Why?Its difficult for me connect my current self with the blithering young idiot who HAD A BALANCE ON hiS CREDIT CARD.
[/quote]Sounds like you’ve went from one extreme to the other.
Here is what I’ve done:
a. Calculate how much money we’ll need monthly in retirement
b. Calculate how much money I need to save to reach that goal
c. Put back enough each month to reach the amount saved goal when we retire
d. Spend the rest!We’ve had someone come in once every 2 weeks to clean the house for 30 years, to mow the lawn for 20. We work hard during the week, I feel we deserve to use our weekends for enjoyment, not more labor.
As far as possessions go, we are pretty close to where we want to be. I can only think of one more big purchase we want to make, after that the only semi-major expense will be vacations. Some people buy vacation homes, I don’t give a sh!t about that…I like going to different places each vacation, not the same place. I would find that as boring as staying home, frankly.
I’ve seen too many friends and relatives save like mad and not spend anything, banking on retirement. Then they die before reaching retirement. I’m not going to be one of those people who didn’t get to enjoy life along the way. I decided that a long time ago.
It is getting close to the point where we’ll have excess cash each month, and that may be the time I need to evaluate whether going part-time may be a better option. We’ll see. Life throws us a curve ball every few months. I may never get to the point of going part time, and that’s fine. Roll with the punches.
svelteParticipant[quote=sdrealtor]
Today would be my mother’s 90th birthday. It is also the 1st anniversary of her passing. Happy Birthday Mom! Thanks for teaching me well. I appreciate you.P.S. Sorry for never telling you how much we were spending for that private room. I know you would have left sooner if I had told so thats why I didnt.[/quote]
I’m sorry to hear about her passing.
svelteParticipant[quote=scaredyclassic]
My wife keeps accusing me of bitching like a rich old guy about first world problems. [/quote]lol my wife tells me I’m getting grumpy, but it’s typically not about money.
[quote=scaredyclassic]
And i dont feel rich. [/quote]This is what I get from my wife: I’ll outline all the what-if scenarios on how we could end up having our saving whacked and not have much in our retirement years.
She’ll just sit there, then turn and look at me and say “I don’t think you remember what it was like to be poor.”
That’s cutting right to the chase. There were weeks when we had to decide what bill was paid. We’re unlikely to ever be in that position again.
svelteParticipant[quote=temeculaguy]
plus there’s this[/quote]
The city has been considering disincorporation for awhile now:
svelteParticipant[quote=scaredyclassic]We bought that cd new when it came out. Listened to it 100x.
[/quote]us too. When my kids were young we as a family played it all the time. In the garage while completing projects, in the minivan on the way to school. It was the soundtrack of our life for about a year.
[quote=scaredyclassic]
The tiny bit of success ive had in life feels so hard won, precarious and small. Im a small weed, a bit of dandelion fluff[/quote]yeah, we all are. I’m pretty introverted so I’m perfectly comfortable with that. As long as I leave things a little better than I found them, I consider it a life that was worth living.
To hard won, precarious and small I would add “fleeting”.
svelteParticipantI’m so tired of being tired.
As sure as night will follow day,
Most things I worry about,
Never happen anyway.– “Crawling Back To You” by Tom Petty
From Wildflowers – a great little album
svelteParticipantAnother thought: I too check up on old friends and classmates. It brings things into sharp focus when I find one that has passed – some in their 30s and 40s. I can still hear their voice in my head, but they are gone.
As soon as I pass and their other friends and family pass, even those memories are gone.
A couple of years ago I reconnected with a guy I hung out with in high school. He stayed local to where we met while I’ve been all over. He passed away about 3 months ago and his daughter sent out a FB request for any photos anyone had of her father so they could be shared at his memorial. I sent her photos from high school and a trip he took with me to northern California. She was thrilled! She could hardly believe her father ever did the things in those photos. She learned another side of him that she would have never known otherwise.
svelteParticipantSounds like you are similar in age to me, scaredy. within a decade i’d say.
There are days I feel like the above, but not many. I believe you’ll see things in a whole nuther light when you have grandkids running around. I’m assuming you don’t yet since your kids are just reaching college age.
We had our kids very young so we are enjoying a few grandkids now. They help me see the world through their eyes, as they discover new things…their eagerness to learn, their amazement at the strange things on this earth, their energy. It can’t help but rub off.
I’m reaching the point where I can see the apex. It’s actually not that far away. So I’ve given careful thought to how I want to spend the final years of my life, spend the money I’ve carefully collected, what I want my legacy to be. Any doctor trip I could return with the knowledge my remaining time may be measured not in decades but in years or months. What do I want to leave behind?
I’ve come up with four things.
– If I die first, I want my wife to be financially secure. If she wants to remarry that’s fine, but I don’t want her to HAVE to remarry. I’ve got this one in the bag.
– I want to leave my kids a good chunk of change. Once my wife passes, I want to have made their life a little easier. Not enough so they never have to work, but enough so that they can afford to not worry. I’m pretty much where I want to be here also.
– I want to leave a written and visual history of our life. I do a lot of genealogy, and for hundreds years past all I pretty much have are names and dates. It gives me very little insight into who these people were, what they felt, what they valued, how they lived their lives. Thank goodness for census records or I wouldn’t even have names and dates. So I want to record my life in a written autobiography. Not so much for public consumption, but to be handed down to future generations. Future generations will have it better, there will be a lot of on-line artifacts for them to draw upon. But it will tell a fractured story – I want to leave a more complete profile, from birth to (almost) death.
– I want to leave genealogical record as deep as I can get it with the artifacts available to me today. There is a lot of stuff out there – much more than I ever realized. But it is still mostly names and dates. Two exceptions are newspaper articles (mostly 1850+) and military records. Oftentimes they will give deeper glimpses into people, especially if they applied for a pension.Note they are all family-focused goals. I figure any mark I make on the world at large will quickly be wiped out by the constants waves of advancement by the billions of others on this earth (a good thing), swept away like footsteps on a beach.
Sorry for getting long-winded, but that is what I’ve decided I want to leave behind when all is said and done.
svelteParticipantsvelteParticipant[quote=Coronita] I probably need a windshield once every 2.5 years.[/quote]
We probably get a rock chip star once every 2.5 years or so between us and we each drive about 10K per year.
Most of those I’ve been able to have the star repair done and it was fine. Twice recently the star went to a full-on crack the same day so I didn’t have a chance to repair.
Those windshields cost me $400 for a 16 yo car (total cost out the door) and $790 on a brand new Italian car (total cost out the door). Didn’t even have 3K miles on it yet. The new car had a fully loaded windshield, all the factory tints and compatible with all the tech equip like forward collision alert, etc. I didn’t even have to take it to a dealer and have it recalibrated – the car self-calibrates after install.
I’ve never even heard of color matched trim pieces needing replacing during a windshield repair. That sounds unnecessarily complicated.
svelteParticipantIt looks like some folks favor gold because it is untraceable – hides illicit activities.
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